Kurzweil's Future

-dubyasucks: May 30, 2001

Ray Kurzweil (author of "The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence") has often spoken about advances in biotechnology and genetics as well. And when I heard him speak in New Orleans, one of the many things that struck me was the exponential rate of change and "advancement" which we are in right now. For instance, a hundred years ago it would take 50 years to achieve a certain amount of technological advancement. But by the next hundred years it would take only 25, and with the next 50 years, that same advancement would take only 12.5 years, and within the next 25 years it would only take 6.25 years, etc. So we are literally careening forward with little sense of the direction we're heading in.

So Kurzweil attempted to solve this by giving us a way to calculate future advancements. He pointed out how the "explosive" growth of the web only appeared explosive to our linear view of reality. However by using an exponential curve, the growth of the web was gradual. The linear diagram he showed presented an enormous spike in the graph, whereas the exponential diagram with the same "points of change" on it was a gradual curve upwards. Using these same calculations, he has drawn certain conclusions about the direction and timetables of certain technological advancements in a number of areas of study including biogenetics, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and 3-dimensional virtual worlds.

An example of such a prediction would be that he has stated that by 2030, technological evolution will have taken over from biological evolution, and we will be able to reverse engineer the brain via nanobots. Great, of this I have no doubt that we are capable. Problem is, who controls all of these wonders? I as an individual wouldn't DARE presume to have the wisdom to foresee all the potential consequences of a change on an evolutionary scale. Yet we are going (this is not a maybe, or a Star Trek future, far off in the distance) to make basic changes to the evolutionary direction of ours and other animal species within a matter of DECADES, rather than the gradual million year timescale of nature. And we're going to leave that power in the hands of the corporation, whose sole motive is profit.

How could I NOT be worried about that? Why shouldn't we ALL be worried about that?

Kurzweil is a very intelligent man, but as we've discussed in other topics on the board, he and Bill Joy part company is on this issue of what will save us from our own worst impulses.

Joy is concerned that since much of scientific exploration is decentralized and in the hands of a wide variety of multi-national corporations, that the lust for profit and unchecked corporate greed will cause harmful things like viruses to be developed and they could literally obliterate mankind. Just like a computer virus, a bio-virus can be spread around the world in a very short time thanks to air travel - the "real world" connectivity equivalent of the internet.

Kurzweil on the other hand, looks to technology itself to save us from such viruses. He points out that when it comes to computer viruses, the harm they do as compared to the overall benefit of say, the internet is only 1%, and "anti-virus technology is developed just as fast.

My problem with Kurzweil's conclusions are this:

1.)

I've heard the mantra of relying on some vague future technology to save us from the blind "groping in the dark" advances of the present before. We thought the future would hold miraculous solutions to the nuclear waste generated by the fusion reactors of the present too. Well, we've got bunches of this stuff that has toxicity half-life of the next 40,000 years, and guess what? We're no closer to disposing of it safely now than we were in 1950. But hey, we got a lot more of the stuff to play with!

And the main reason why nuclear power is unsafe, beyond the obvious inherent dangers of the raw materials themselves, is two-fold: 1.) the plants are built by the lowest bidder, and operated by corporations whose main concern is profit sometimes to the tragic cost of sacrificing safety, and 2.) because it's still not safe, no one wants the waste in their backyard, or even transported through their yard to someplace else. Now imagine genetic alteration on humans controlled by the lowest bidder, or a corporation interested more in profit than consequences, and no one possessing the political will to fix any problems that result. That is the future we're talking about.

2.)

Drawing a parallel between damages to computer systems with the potential damages to human beings speaks directly to the root of our problem. We have placed technology above life in our considerations. Who gives a flying fuck if 1% of the world's computers go down? But if 1% of humanity dies, that's 1% of 6 billion people! That's a great way to institute population control I'll admit, but I'm not real sure I want to get there that way.

3.)

He presumes that human anti viruses will be as virulently pursued and widely distributed as computer anti-virus solutions. This will not be the case, and can in fact be proven right now. Take Tuberculosis, or TB. We are currently sitting on the verge of a worldwide health crisis with TB, yet not a single new drug to combat the disease has been developed since the 1940's. Why? It's not sexy, and mostly poor people get it.

Result, the current supplies of drug to treat the virus are in short supply, and are extremely expensive, and the current anti-virus/vaccine is largely ineffective against stronger more virulent strains which have developed in the last few years. But yet no major corporation is running after protecting us from this virus the way those same corporations run after developing anti-virus protection for their computer systems. Why? $$$$$$$$$$$.

If their computers go down for a day, that costs them millions, but if a thousand kids die in the Bronx from TB, it costs them nothing, ergo, they don't give a shit. But Kurzweil is expecting me to entrust my personal safety and health with these same companies and expect them to develop future technology to protect me? The only ones they'll protect are themselves. Sure I "might" get an ancillary benefit, but it might just as easily be completely out of my reach if I don't have enough money.

When I heard him speak I was struck by two things. 1.) He's and incredibly intelligent and erudite man. 2.) He's incredibly naive about the motivations of people.

History is full of the examples of government abuse of power. First the monarchies and churches abused their position of power, then the totalitarian governments of the right and the left.

Communism didn't work because Marx never calculated in the factor of human greed. Communism was supposed to have several stages. First, the old government of the rich aristocracy would be overthrown. Then, then people's government would be placed in total power and they would evenly divide the nation's wealth amongst the masses. Then this communist government would give up their positions of total control to the people themselves, and paradise would spontaneously appear. Problem is, they could never get to that last stage because once the communist government had control, they refused to give it up and totalitarian abuses of that power were the result of their greed.

Now we have a new model of total control appearing. Rampant, unchecked, corporate power, and it scares the hell out of me.